Sometimes
in fishkeeping one decides to set up a tank and stocks it accordingly,
but other times the species of fish to be kept must, or at least,
should determine the tank set-up.
Back when I still thought all that was necessary for fish breeding
was to put two fish in tank, feed, and wait, I bought a pair of
Callochromis Macrops. The fish were placed in a 10 gallon
tank with a gravel bottom. Several days later both fish developed
fungal infections around their mouths. Although the fungus responded
to treatment, the fish never truly recovered and died soon afterward.
It was theorized that the initial damage was caused by their habit
of sticking their faces into the gravel to feed, thereby abrading
the slime coat and skin. This would leave the fish vulnerable to
the aforementioned fungal infections, as well as to bacterial ones.
After some research, cause was found to support this theory. Unfortunately,
while the use of "river sand" was often alluded to, little
concrete information on its use and composition was given after
networking with fellow hobbyists.
An arowanna keeper who used nothing but sand as a substrate was
found. He swore nothing more than silica sand, live plants, and
an Aquaclear filter were needed to maintain water quality, although
he did admit to using Chemi-pure. He cautioned that he had not had
satisfactory results with power filters other than Aquaclear. A
brief comparison of Aquaclear vs. Other filters soon revealed a
possible explanation; unlike most power filters, an Aquaclear uses
a fairly large sponge rather than a foam pad or dacron sleeve. This
made sense, in that although the area of sand is greater than that
of gravel, compaction leaves less surface area available for bacterial
growth. The large area in the sponge compared to a pad or sleeve
would make up for the surface area lost to compaction of the sand.
However, why buy a new power filter when the addition of a sponge
pre-filter or sponges period could be added to the filtration systems
already on hand? (A.T.I. filters work fine in either application)
but sand tanks have more differences to take into account than filtration.
In order to keep an aerobic bacteria from developing with their
concurrent pockets of hydrogen sulfide, the sand in the tank should
be tilled or raked regularly although snails are mentioned in the
literature, only a few specific species are useful for this purpose
and most are useless.
The best solutions I have found to this is either use substrate
sifters, which move the sand around looking for food or run a loose
weave fishnet through the sand. Just don't bury the (! *#?) into
the sand while tilling. Getting mulm out of the tank itself represents
a small challenge because of the flow rate necessary to lift mulm.
A python or a standard 1/5" tube siphon will also lift out
the sand. The three best methods I have found for dealing with mulm
and detritus removal are:
1) A steep sided small container placed in a bucket will generally
allow most of the mulm to overflow into the bucket while trapping
the sand (it works with fry, too!).
2) Use water current to keep detritus floating till the power and
sponges can trap it.
3) Use a turkey baster or syringe to either siphon out small concentrations
of mulm or to blast loose particles into suspension near power filters
or a siphon.
One thing to be aware of is that mulm will congregate in sheltered
areas such as under rocks. It is a good idea to lift rocks or internal
filters and siphon out the waste that will collect under them regularly.
Outside of this caveat, a sand tank is similar to a bare bottomed
tank in that wast build ups are readily visible, making removal
simple.
Since using sand in my shell-dweller and substrate sifter tanks,
my fish have displayed portions of their behavior repertoire not
seen or seen to a lesser extent in my gravel tanks. My tanks are
cleaner since any large build up of waste is removed before it can
become a problem. I don't have to worry about my substrate sifters
developing fungus on their mouths. Silicon sand doesn't change water
chemistry and since its not a part of the filtration system, who
cares if the fish dig pits? With a little luck and the information
in this article, using sand as a substrate can be relatively painless.
So, if you keep fish that occur over sand, do them a favor and give
it to them. The rewards may surprise you. |
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